Are measures of attachment and attachment-relevant caregiving helpful or unhelpful to assessments of child mental health and safeguarding needs?

The NICE Guidelines on Child Attachment (2016) highlighted the lack of empirical evidence for or against the value of assessments of attachment/attachment-relevant caregiving in clinical and child welfare practice, and urged the need for further research. A recent international consensus statement on attachment and applied practice further listed this as a key research priority (Forslund et al. 2022). There have also been stakeholder concerns about assessments discriminating against families based on sociodemographic factors and child neurodiversity. In partnership with families and practitioners, our study will evaluate whether assessments of attachment can improve the sensitivity and specificity of assessments for child mental health and welfare. 5-8 year old participants will be drawn from the consent-to-recontact register of Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services. Families will receive assessments of attachment/attachment-relevant caregiving. Co-production will help us examine the acceptability of the assessments to children and caregivers with cultural competence and ethical integrity. Using follow-up administrative data, we will assess the sensitivity and specificity of assessments of attachment/attachment-relevant caregiving compared to other concurrent information. We will examine whether assessments are confounded by sociodemographic factors and child neurodiversity. $2.5m in matched funding from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council will support dissemination and impact.